


The Burglar's Dozen

by Mercurie



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Community: fandom_stocking, Double Drabble, Friendship, Gen, Irony, Sad, Spoilers, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 07:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercurie/pseuds/Mercurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirteen was too many, Bilbo thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Burglar's Dozen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bold_seer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/gifts).



Thirteen was too many, Bilbo thought. He might have managed _three_ Dwarves. But thirteen?

Outrageous.

He ran after them, picking up dishes and hiding cheese wheels. This lot was worse than the Sackville-Bagginses for turning your home topsy-turvy. It was mean-spirited, but he couldn't wait to be rid of them.

Fili and Kili pounded him on the shoulders. Bifur and Bofur sang mocking verses at him. Bombur found the cheese wheels. Dwalin grunted and glowered. Thorin looked down his long nose at the supposed _burglar_. Bilbo fought a panicked desire to hide in the cellar.

Thirteen was simply too many.

***

Thirteen was just right, Bilbo thought. He stood over three graves and wept for Fili, Kili, and Thorin Oakenshield. Now their number was but ten, and how small that number felt.

Thirteen Dwarves had stolen him away from home and carried him across the wide world. Thirteen Dwarves had stolen him from deadly peril, from the trolls' cookpot. Somewhere along the way he'd begun stealing them back - from the spiders, from the Elves, from despair in the heart of Mirkwood. But he could not steal them back from death.

Ten was not enough. How he longed for thirteen Dwarves.


End file.
